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PHP Mall Product Classification and Filtering Features Tutorial: Enhance User Shopping Experience

M66 2025-06-16

PHP Mall Product Classification and Filtering Features Tutorial

When developing a PHP mall system, the product classification and filtering features are core elements in enhancing the user experience. Proper classification and filtering enable users to quickly find the products they are interested in, saving time and improving shopping efficiency. This article will provide a detailed guide on how to implement these two features with PHP, along with code examples to help developers understand and apply these features effectively.

1. Creating Product Categories

First, we need to create a product category table in the database and the corresponding model class. The product category table should include at least the following fields: id, name, parent_id, where id is the auto-increment primary key, name is the category name, and parent_id is the ID of the parent category.

Here is the SQL code example for creating the product category table:

CREATE TABLE `categories` (
  `id` int(11) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `parent_id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `created_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL,
  `updated_at` timestamp NULL DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;

2. Creating the Product Category Model

Next, we need to create a Category model class to interact with the product category data in the code and define the relevant relationships.

<?php
namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Category extends Model
{
    protected $fillable = ['name', 'parent_id'];

    public function parent()
    {
        return $this->belongsTo(Category::class, 'parent_id');
    }

    public function children()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(Category::class, 'parent_id');
    }
}

3. Displaying Product Categories

On the front-end page, we need to display the product categories in a tree structure to allow users to browse and select categories easily. Below is a code example to achieve this:

<?php
use App\Models\Category;

function displayCategories($categories, $parent_id = 0)
{
    echo '<ul class="category-list">';
    foreach ($categories as $category) {
        if ($category->parent_id == $parent_id) {
            echo '<li>' . $category->name;
            $children = $category->children;
            if (count($children) > 0) {
                displayCategories($children, $category->id);
            }
            echo '</li>';
        }
    }
    echo '</ul>';
}

$categories = Category::all();
displayCategories($categories);

4. Implementing Product Filtering

The product filtering feature helps users quickly find the products they need based on their preferences. Typically, product filtering involves attributes like price range, color, brand, etc. We can use a form to collect the user's filter criteria and query products based on those criteria.

Here is a code example for product filtering:

<?php
use App\Models\Product;

function getFilteredProducts($filters)
{
    $query = Product::query();

    if (isset($filters['price'])) {
        $query->whereBetween('price', [$filters['price']['min'], $filters['price']['max']]);
    }

    if (isset($filters['color'])) {
        $query->whereIn('color', $filters['color']);
    }

    // Add other filtering conditions

    $products = $query->get();
    return $products;
}

$filters = $_POST['filters']; // Get the filter criteria submitted by the user
$products = getFilteredProducts($filters); // Get the products that match the filter criteria

Conclusion

Through this tutorial, you have learned how to implement product classification and filtering features in a PHP mall system. Proper classification and filtering not only enhance user experience but also help users quickly find the products they need, which can improve the mall's conversion rate. We hope this article has been helpful for your project development!

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